Lot

Meaning

A lot is a point worked out from three others. Measure the distance from one body to another, in the order of the signs, then lay that same distance off from the Ascendant: where it ends is the lot. The Greek word, klēros, means a lot drawn for a share, as in an inheritance, and each lot was read as a person’s share in one area of life.

Many lots take their distance one way for a birth by day and the other way for a birth by night. This follows sect, the old division of the chart into a day team and a night team, led by the Sun and by the Moon.

The two main lots come as a pair. The Lot of Fortune, also known as the Part of Fortune, carries the distance from the Sun to the Moon by day. It is read as the body and its well-being, livelihood and what comes to a person. The Lot of Spirit carries the distance the other way, from the Moon to the Sun by day. It is read as the mind, intention and action: what a person sets out to do, and often their work. The two mirror each other across the Ascendant.

Like any point in the chart, a lot is read by its sign, its house, the planet that rules its sign and the bodies that aspect it.

In practice

• Fortune and Spirit together: Fortune in the 2nd house and Spirit in the 10th, for example, is read as circumstances tied to resources and intentions tied to a public role.
• The ruler of a lot shows how its share is managed: a well-placed ruler is read as a share that is easy to use.
• Counting from a lot: Hellenistic astrologers counted the signs from Fortune as if it were a second Ascendant, to read a whole chart of circumstances.
• Other lots: lots of marriage, of children, of the father or of the mother each laid off their own two bodies from the Ascendant, to read one topic.

Across traditions

• Arabic-speaking astrologers of the Middle Ages multiplied the lots, which is why they are also called Arabic parts. Al-Biruni listed dozens of them in 1029.
• Midpoints, the core of twentieth-century Hamburg and cosmobiology astrology, also combine positions by adding and halving. A midpoint stays between its two bodies, while a lot is carried to the Ascendant.

Origin and history

Lots are among the oldest techniques of Hellenistic astrology. Dorotheus of Sidon, in the first century, already uses many of them, for parents, siblings and marriage among others. Vettius Valens, in the second century, works with Fortune and with Spirit, which he calls the lot of the daimon, and reverses them by night. Claudius Ptolemy kept almost none of them: in the Tetrabiblos he uses Fortune alone and takes it the same way by day and by night. Paulus Alexandrinus, writing in 378, sets out seven lots, one for each planet, later called the Hermetic lots: Fortune, Spirit, Eros, Necessity, Courage, Victory and Nemesis. Medieval astrologers carried the lots into Arabic and then Latin, where pars, a part, gave the name Part of Fortune.

How Ulune calculates it

• Ulune computes two lots, Fortune and Spirit, from the chart’s own Ascendant, Sun and Moon.
• By day, Fortune is Ascendant + Moon − Sun, and Spirit is Ascendant + Sun − Moon. By night the two formulas swap.
• A birth counts as by day when the centre of the Sun is above the true horizon at the birthplace. Near sunrise and sunset, the formulas can change within minutes. If the Sun’s height cannot be worked out, its house decides: the 7th to the 12th count as day.
• Both lots are placed in the houses and aspected with the same orbs as the planets. They are left out of the midpoint and fixed-star contacts, the transit table and the calendar.
• Without a birth time, both lots are noon stand-ins, marked approximate.
• In a composite chart, Fortune and Spirit are the midpoints of the two charts’ own lots.
• Ulune computes no other lot.